You have a story. Perhaps you’ve made partial peace with some of the previous chapters of your story. But what about the chapters yet to come? Some people sit back and expect someone else, perhaps God, to write every detail. Others try to work hard to make life the way they want it to be. The wise perspective is to see yourself as writing your story with God as your co-Author.

The reality of the sovereignty of God sometimes seems to conflict with the reality of our free will. There’s been endless debate for 2000 years about what feels like tension between what God does and our human agency. It’s absolutely certain that we cannot control the future. But do our choices, does our effort, change anything at all?

Here’s a truly remarkable thing; God needs us! Not in the sense that He lacks anything at all. But when Jesus was here on earth He illustrated this truth. As He was making his final approach to Jerusalem He sent two disciples into a village to find and bring Him a young donkey. When asked, the disciples were only to say, “the Lord has need of it” (Luke 19:31, 34). In God’s economy there are things He wants done that will not happen without us.

So what does this look like in your life? How can you write your story with God as your co-Author?

You’re Not Writing Your Story Solo

Career/life coaching has become big business in recent years. There is great value in not simply drifting into the future. Imagining what you want to be true about your finances, relationships, marriage, health, career, spirituality, etc. is immensely helpful in actually getting there. But don’t mistake that for “manifesting” or having control.

James wrote, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil” (James 4:13-16).

It’s been said that control is an illusion, and that’s true. You can’t even change the color of your skin – or your heart – by trying harder (see Jeremiah 13:23), let alone control anyone else, or the future. I learned a long time ago that no amount of angst will add one centimeter to my almost-five-foot height. We waste a lot of time and energy worrying about what we can’t change.

But that doesn’t mean you’re “off the hook.”

God Doesn’t Write the Story Without You

As John Eldredge says, we are born into a love story set in a world at war. The whole of Scripture tells the meta-narrative in which our lives are but one small chapter. News flash; the universe does not revolve around you!

And yet the Creator of the universe put everything on hold to come and rescue you. Your individual story matters enough that Jesus came to earth, lived, died, lived again, and is coming back. For you!

Your role in the story is bigger than you think. You are a son or daughter of Adam and Eve who were created to have dominion over the earth, to care for it, to rule as regents under God’s ultimate rulership. Humans have messed up that mandate, but God has not rescinded it. The whole New Testament is full of guidance and directives showing us how to do that in light of Jesus. We do not just sit back and wait for God to “zap” things to be a certain way.

We see over and over again in Scripture, and in the witness of those who have followed Jesus over the last 2000 years, that God has chosen to need you. What you do, the choices you make, the effort you expend, makes a difference – for your own life, and far beyond.

Writing Your Story Together

If you’ve been reading my articles for a while you know I refer often to this Scripture: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). God works. And we work. It’s working together.

What might that look like? When it comes to your relationship with God, you cannot earn His love or attention; He just plain loves you. But you get to choose how much time you invest in being with Him; that determines a lot about how much like Jesus you become (see Romans 8:29). You decide whether to love, honor, believe, follow, and worship Him – or something else.

Your desires and longings matter. They can be corrupted by living in this sinful world, but they matter.

• Do you want to find a good spouse? That desire acts like fuel to push you to deal with your own stuff so you become desirable, to do the hard work of looking and relationship building, to risk love when it’s so uncertain.
• Does your heart long for a healthier marriage? You need that longing in order to learn the necessary skills of loving well, to risk intimacy, and to get over yourself long enough for a good marriage to grow.
• Long for healing and wholeness? That longing pushes you to make the choice to heal even when it’s scary and hard.
• Do you want influence, success, money, a career? Your drive is necessary for you to put in the required effort.

But here’s the most important thing to remember;

Your Effort Does Not Guarantee the Outcome

I don’t know if you will get married, if your marriage will be restored, what your healing will look like, or how much money or influence you will accumulate. If you write your story with God as the co-Author it means you hold the outcome with open hands.

You can learn to carry yourself like Jesus; He truly had the weight of the world on His shoulders, yet He was never anxious or in a hurry. He lived open and free, able to be fully present with people, and completely confident in His mission. He could say at the end of His life, “I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4).

You can Sabbath well and work hard the rest of the time. You can wake up each day and pray, “Boss (Lord), what do You have for me to do today?” (That’s following Jesus; John 10:27.) You can give it your all, while holding the outcome with open hands.

You can write your story with God as your co-Author. The outcome will probably amaze you.

Your turn: Do you tend to anxiously try harder to control your future? Or do you tend to sit back and wait for something to happen? Where do you need to work together with God in writing your story? Leave a comment below.

Want more? On this week’s podcast I talk with Adam Young about dealing with the specifics of your story, especially the hard parts. Listen or watch.

Tweetables: why not share this post?

• Trying harder to control your future won’t work. Neither will drifting, hoping to get somewhere good. Instead, learn to write your story with God as your co-Author, doing it together. Tweet that.

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